17-18 Thieves Like Us & O.C. and Stiggs

[Polybius]

Thieves Like Us



A group of criminals daringly escape from prison in depression-era Mississippi. They survive by robbing banks and hole up with a gas station attendant where injured Bowie (Keith Carradine, Nashville) falls in love with the attendant's daughter Keechie (Shelley Duvall, 3 Women). Made within one of the great runs of back-to-back classics by any filmmaker, Robert Altman followed multi-award-winning classics like M*A*S*H and The Long Goodbye with Thieves Like Us, an adaptation of Edward Anderson's pulp novel. Previously adapted by Nicholas Ray as They Live by Night, Altman's film takes a more faithful approach to the source material, preserving the original tone and period of the novel, going back to historical and American myth themes that Altman mined so brilliantly in his earlier McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Critically praised, noted critic Pauline Kael described it as "the closest to flawless of Altman's films - a masterpiece."

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

• High-Definition digital transfer
• Original uncompressed mono PCM audio
• Audio commentary by director Robert Altman
• Brand new interview with co-screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury who discusses the film and her working relationship with Altman (2023)
• Brand new interview with star Keith Carradine (2023)
• Geoff Andrew on Thieves Like Us - the critic discusses the film and its place within Altman's work
• Two classic radio plays featured in the film - The Shadow written by and starring Orson Welles and Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police starring Ed Gardner
• Trailer
• Promotional image gallery
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring designs based on original posters
• Limited edition booklet featuring new writing by critic Pamela Hutchinson; archival writing by Robert Altman; and a piece looking at the script development from the novel by professor Alan Schroeder
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings


O.C. and Stiggs



O.C. and Stiggs are a pair of sharp teens who carry out a vendetta against middle-class neighbour Mr. Schwab as his insurance company has cancelled O.C's grandfather's retirement policy. From characters created by Ted Mann and Tod Carroll of the National Lampoon (the magazine that ushered in the biggest comedy of the era in Animal House), Robert Altman brought O.C. and Stiggs to the screen, a blazing satire of 1980s America. A precursor to delinquent characters like Wayne and Garth and Beavis and Butthead the film has been described as "cooler than Ferris. As savage as Heathers" (Hunter Stephenson). Beautifully shot with visual anarchy to match its acerbic screenplay, O.C. and Stiggs features a sensational cast including Jane Curtin (Third Rock From the Sun), Paul Dooley (Sixteen Candles), Jon Cryer (Hot Shots!), Dennis Hopper (Blue Velvet), Melvin Van Peebles (Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song) and others, presented on Blu-ray for the first time.

BLU-RAY LIMITED EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES

• High-Definition digital transfer
• Uncompressed mono PCM audio
• A new documentary featurette on the making of the film by critic Hunter Stephenson featuring new interviews with the cast and crew (2023) - more details to be confirmed
• New interview with camera operator Robert Reed Altman (2023)
• Altman on O.C. and Stiggs archival featurette (2005, 8 mins)
• Trailer
• Gallery of rare images
• English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Reversible sleeve featuring original and new artwork by Time Tomorrow
• Limited edition booklet featuring archival writings by Robert Altman about the film and his approaches to filmmaking
• Limited edition of 3000 copies, presented in full-height Scanavo packaging with removable OBI strip leaving packaging free of certificates and markings

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Speaking of quirky, kooky movies of Altman's, I would also like to see O.C. & Stiggs get a proper DVD release. I know a lot of people aren't crazy about this one but it's a guilty pleasure. I really dig its irreverant and the gonzo attitude that permeates the entire film. And to think that this was Altman's attempt at an '80s teen sex comedy! Weird...

I had read Ted Mann's source stories in National Lampoon and loved them, so I was prepared for this and I wasn't disappointed. Altman knew exactly how to handle this material. It was damned cool to, for once, see teens who were actually smart, albeit Anarchists

Nobody does Middle Aged and Bewildered better than Paul Dooley.

I was a little surprised to see Mann's age when I looked up his name. For a guy as old as he was in the 80's, he wrote very convincing teen vernacular speech.

True enough. I have never read Mann's stories. How do they compare to the film? Did Altman faithfully adapt them or tweak them to his own unique worldview?

[justeleblanc]

So was O.C. and Stiggs formally more similar to Animal House or Short Cuts in terms of adapting many stories into one big one.

[Polybius]

He's pretty faithful. The stories (I've read a couple, IIRC) are about a couple of suburban kids who go far out of their way to cause their clueless bozo, but essentially harmless, neighbor trouble. They're both highly intelligent and very erudite but they're very, very warped, so they're endlessly hilarious.

At least to me...

[Matt]

O.C. and Stiggs is coming from Sony on November 15.

[justeleblanc]

Yay?

Of all the Altman movies still waiting DVD treatment... Oh well, I'll buy it anyway.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Yay?

Of all the Altman movies still waiting DVD treatment... Oh well, I'll buy it anyway.

Hah! Yeah, I'm gonna get it too. It's a goofy romp of a movie that has its moments.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

O.C. and Stiggs is coming from Sony on November 15.

Official page on MGM site:

http://www.mgm.com/title_title.do?title_star=OCSTIGGS

I read somewhere that its going to be presented full screen instead of, I would assume Altman's usual M.O. 2:35.1? Anyone know what it was originally?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

I picked up O.C. and Stiggs and the good news is that it is in fact presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1. Pretty bare bones in the extras department except for an 8 minute featurette with Altman where he is his usual candid self. He mentions at one point that he hated the screenplay and in turn the screenwriters hated what he did with it!

This is an odd little film to be sure. In some respects, O.C. and Stiggs are like teenage versions of Hawkeye and Trapper John from M*A*S*H. Both duos come off as clever hipsters but the latter are also brilliant surgeons whereas the former are only good at one thing--staging elaborate practical jokes.

The problem I have with O.C. and Stiggs is the central characters. They aren't particularly interesting. Their obsession with pulling endless practical jokes on the Schwabs seems mean-spirited at times. The problem with this movie is that what O.C. and Stiggs are rebelling against isn't as clearly defined as the war in M*A*S*H. The teen pranksters are rebelling against the mind-numbing banality of suburbia and the "Greed is good" [MOD NOTE: remainder of post lost in forum crash]

[jorencain]

Has anyone mentioned that O.C. & Stiggs is NOT anamorphic????!!!! I just picked it up and I can't believe it. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but I'm pretty bummed about that.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Has anyone mentioned that O.C. & Stiggs is NOT anamorphic????!!!! I just picked it up and I can't believe it. Haven't had a chance to watch it yet, but I'm pretty bummed about that.

Hey, at least it's in its original aspect ratio. I've had to suffer for years watching it pan and scanned. Watching it on DVD was like seeing an entirely different movie, almost.

[zedz]

Ok, so I watched O.C. and Stiggs. I'd like to think that the Altman 80s Decline theory has been exaggerated, and the evidence is certainly mixed (the further he seems to get from obvious Altman material during this period the better I like it - to wit Come Back to the Five and Dime, Secret Honor, Tanner '88), so this maligned film could serve as a kind of litmus test.

My expectations for this venture into teen comedy were that Altman's personality would be swamped by lame genre conventions and the heavy hand of studio interference, so I was surprised to find that the thing was pure Altman: messy and anarchic, rambling and overlapping, with a large ensemble incorporating several past and future (Paul Dooley, Cynthia Nixon) or parallel universe (Jane Curtin, Dennis Hopper) Altman regulars.

Although it's a genuine Altman film, it's also, unfortunately, a genuinely bad Altman film, its biggest crime being that it's painfully unfunny. In line with other films of its ilk from the period, it completely indulges its protagonists. Being anti-authority trumps everything, including idiocy and rampant narcissism. If O.C. and Stiggs' antics had any wit or panache I might have been able to cut them and the film some slack, but as it was it was all just a numbing grind. The only thing I got out of it was the curiosity value of seeing Altman's favoured techniques being squandered and the bizarre non sequitur of King Sunny Ade being the pop payoff in an 80s teen comedy (now that's a microfad I completely missed!)

[matrixschmatrix]

I'm as big an Altman fan as any, but even I will be shocked to find someone defending "O.C. and Stiggs".

Here's one. Although it's in the context of looking at the movie as a flop, which definitely doesn't bear the same expectations going in just knowing it's an Altman does.

[beamish13]

I think there is something of a mean streak in some of Altman's work that gets confused or conflated with his self chosen mission to democratize satire for every character in every film. As knives writes, there is a real egalitarian feeling to the humor in most of his films where everyone seems equally fair game to be the butt of a joke (and, crucially, for me, I don't think he usually views himself as being outside of this). And there's also that frat boy thing mentioned above, which I suppose I see most clearly in O.C. And Stiggs, a film in which two angry young boys prank the whole rest of their world because they deem it to be so much more worthy of ridicule than, say, their more authentic lives. And I write that as a fan -- one of the few if not the only -- of O.C. And Stiggs.

For a long time I couldn't find a way into his films because I felt this attitude intensely in a number of his works, even Short Cuts. I think now that I was wrong, that even in most of the darkest satirical moments Altman isn't holding himself outside or above the joke the way O.C. and Stiggs do. And the work is funnier and more affecting because of it.

I enjoy O.C. & STIGGS immensely, too. They're deliberately grotesque creations (as are the Schwabs), and Altman was definitely commenting on the immature young males that were celebrated in many 80's teen films. The wedding sequence in particular is just wonderful.

[beamish14]

The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Oral History of O.C. & Stiggs

Really interesting stuff, particularly with some insights into how Altman went about casting teen actors.

[tolbs1010]

The Utterly Monstrous, Mind-Roasting Oral History of O.C. & Stiggs

Really interesting stuff, particularly with some insights into how Altman went about casting teen actors.

Very entertaining read. Much more entertaining than watching O.C. & Stiggs. Yet reading this does make me want to give the film a 3rd chance to tickle my Altman fancy.

Thanks for posting.

[swo17]

I hope some people will take the implicit advice to go locate and be dazzled by O.C. and Stiggs, arguably Altman's best film and certainly his most underrated

OK I bit and really liked this too. I can see some of the same energy as in the PTA, though Brewster isn't fresh enough in my mind to say which is a better fit. Mostly though, someone needs to properly release this because the circulating bootleg is almost painful to watch. Who knew the Schwabs would be powerful enough to bury it (I presume)?

[domino harvey]

Bootleg? MGM released it on DVD

[Never Cursed]

The transfer on that DVD is just a straight rip of the VHS. The circulating copy (which is from that) isn’t actually a bootleg, but the interlaced, improperly scaled, natively 240p resolution image is easy to mistake for one. I imagine that, as with another Altman, the costs of its offbeat music cues have kept this one down for a while (and it’s not as though this is a film remembered with a lot of fondness by anyone involved or even most Altman appreciators).

[swo17]

Huh, well they certainly fooled me. I looked around first for a DVD at my library or Netflix and that didn't turn anything up. I just assumed what I watched was a bootleg from the poor quality

[therewillbeblus]

Unfortunately I don't think anyone outside of the people talking here love the movie enough to do anything about it

[Never Cursed]

Also swo, this piece linked above is a pretty great comprehensive overview of the film, giving both a solid (and at times wild-sounding) account of its creation and a good analytical reading. It was the product of a fairly large amount of interviews with the surviving cast and crew (among them the stars and Paul Dooley), as well as what appears to be unrestricted access to Altman's archive at the University of Michigan. Highly recommend to anyone interested in the film or in Altman's work (though there are some spoilers within)

[therewillbeblus]

I'll attest that it's an absolute joy to read

[beamish14]

Huh, well they certainly fooled me. I looked around first for a DVD at my library or Netflix and that didn't turn anything up. I just assumed what I watched was a bootleg from the poor quality

It’s such a vibrant looking film (Pierre Mignot is a massively underrated DP, and one of the best collaborators Altman ever had) but you certainly can’t tell from that disc. Park Circus (MGM’s repertory catalog distributor) has a gorgeous 35mm print that looks like it’s playing in Austin soon. If you’re near a cinematheque, beg them to program it.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

beamish14: Where did you see this print play? I’ve actually tried to see if HealtH or O.C. and Stiggs ever played Los Angeles, but couldn’t find any info. It seems neither played at UCLA’s Altman retro years ago when his estate donated all his prints to them.

Can we get a seperate thread for O.C and Stiggs? I agree with therewillbeblus that it might be my own personal favorite Altman. I didn’t see it for the first time until two years ago assuming it was terrible, but now have seen it at least five times. On top of being very funny, it’s Altman’s bitter attack on Reagan conservatism and a further reexamination of Americana, albeit with two ill behaved teens who steal lobsters and drive a large car.

I actually wonder if the music rights are that big of an issue? It was released as a DVD at some point and the music is by King Sunny Ade whose catalog is pressed by a major label, Island Records. I wonder what the cost of licensing that music is? I feel the biggest reason it hasn’t been reissued is because of the negative reputation it has, but it’s still far superior to Fool for Love which has gotten an HD release. I keep hoping Vinegar Syndrome or Fun City Editions and their MGM connections allow them to license this. I just can’t see any other labels being interested in touching this one.